I laughed because, well, that's me.
I know you're supposed to adore all the home-made things your kids make for Christmas, and in our time, our tree did indeed reflect that sort of stick-figure family charm. I do hope we made memories that made sense out of the traditions of our love. I think we might have, because some of those traditions are now carried on. And I am so, so glad for those years.
But I must confess that when a new era dawned and the kids were decorating trees of their own in their own grown up homes, I was so happy to release the semi-Victorian, cherub-faced, gold and ivory, evenly-spaced energies I'd held back for so long.
I muse on that every year while I trim our tree, humming Joy to the Word and smiling in a vaguely OCD kind of way.
I'm musing and humming because..... there was that one weird Christmas.
In the fall of 2015 I had the exceptional opportunity to spend three months in Thailand, a time that began in September and dipped into the first two weeks of December. At that point I had never experienced a Thai Christmas, and my Thai family was happy to help me engage in everything the season meant for them.
Christians in Thailand celebrate Christmas in something of a cultural vacuum. It surprised me to learn that Christmas Day isn't a stat holiday, and on December 25th, people go to work and children go to school as if it was any other day. There's a nod to the season in the retail world, more in the bigger malls, but not much larger than a three meter square display of Christmas wrap in any other supermarket. Nothing in the villages.
In Christian churches, and certainly at Hot Springs, the emphasis is more on the Nativity story, and sharing a special lunch after service on the Sunday before Christmas.
That other parts of the world haven't plunged into the dark depths of Christmas consumerism is something to be glad about, for sure. And I found, as we moved through the month together, all that was specifically Christian about Christmas was that much more accentuated. Even before it got weird.
Of course, at Hot Springs, everything's simpler when it comes to all those extra trappings of Christmas; things like, say, gifts. Not minimalistic in a pure sense, but, we do have twenty kids, all of whom have come here because they badly needed food and a home and a place to be safe. So we're careful. And we don't expect much. Not just at Christmas. But at Christmas, how much can you really do on such a tight budget?
You can put up a Christmas tree. Which we did together one afternoon.
We put it up outside. That was the first weird thing. But hey, why not? Temperatures are 'plunging' to 18C overnight, but otherwise we're talking anything around 35 to 40 during the day. We'll be sitting outside much of the time, so...that's where we'll put the tree.
So we're outside, humming Joy to the World, and it's getting hot, and nothing about this seems to me like it's right to be putting up a Christmas tree. And I'm sensing this gradually-getting-stronger 'colliding worlds' thing, that crescendos into something of a mini existential crisis, realizing how much of my Christmas might actually be a conditioned response to a multitude of things that have nothing to do with the Incarnation, which is kind of a really big deal to recognize since I say my whole entire life is built on the centrality of this story, and not on how or where or in what temperature a Christmas tree is decorated, said Christmas tree, by the way, not showing up anywhere in the Bible, which is, ya know, only the truth source I say I want to live by. And all this is sort of unrolling in my head like some annoying run-on sentence of disorientation when -- Hey What? -- the mosquitoes start going at it! And then it really feels like things are all messed up now!
Yes. I know. Bit of an over-the-top reaction to mosquitoes, me thinks. But in all fairness, this sheltered Southwestern Ontario girl hasn't ever been sweating and swatting while decorating a tree and singing Joy to the World before. Ever. It's like suddenly the whole of Christmas has been decorated by oblivious children, haphazard and strewn, happily stripping away all that's OCD in me and leaving me with -- well, nothing but Mary nursing God.
And the God-Child isn't white.
And everything's rather chaotic and organic and earthy. Real. Anything but evenly spaced. And the angels aren't sweet cherubs but a host (army) that's freaking the shepherds right out of their minds. And very soon the Holy Family will be wretchedly running for their lives, refugees seeking safety, fleeing the wrath of someone else's quarrel, desperate.
And there it is. The weirdness making sense.
I didn't realize I was OCD until....
This doesn't end with me deciding against decorating for Christmas. For me, that would be missing the point, ironically still focusing on the wrong thing, only in something of a reactionist-oppositional kind of way. No, there's still a gold and ivory tree in our family room, and it's lovely.
But it's got a sister, half way around the world, outside, dealing with mosquitoes and declaring joy for some tenaciously amazing children who are more like the Infant Christ than anyone else I've met in my own entire life.
"Inasmuch as you've done this to the least of these......"
If Christmas is all weird for you this year, you're not alone.
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